Game OVA Reversal: Episode 6—Dragon Slayer: The Legend of Heroes

We started with Falcom and, by the wallcrushing fists of Dogi, we're going to end with Falcom. Game OVA Reversal, which flips the usual dynamic of watching anime and playing games based on same by instead watching anime based on games, has reached its season finale here with the very first The Legend of Heroes game. Anyone attached to the world of Japanese RPGs has heard this (admittedly anodyne) title before, even if it typically gets elided for the sake of the subtitular Trails brand that its modern iterations use, but I'd go out on a limb to suggest that very few of those Trails fans have played this series's origin point (myself included, at least prior to this week). This also means that, in conclusion, this series of Game OVA Reversal has covered two fantasy RPG series, two cyberpunk shooter series, and two side-scrolling ninja platformer series: a little bit of synchronization I perhaps didn't intend but am going to pretend that I did because it'll make me seem smart. Though I guess it really just makes me seem bereft of ideas, huh.

Speaking of this Game OVA Reversal season, let's do one final catch-up before we move onto the main event here. We eased into things with Ys for Episode 1, went blasting with both gun barrels for Ganbare Goemon in Episode 2, kept things on the down low by covering obscure shoot 'em ups Download in Episode 3, had the Dragon Ninja guidin' our hand with Ninja Gaiden in Episode 4, and were sincerely confused by how the 1998 Sin FPS (of all things) saw an anime adaptation in Episode 5.

The Property

Dragon Slayer: The Legend of Heroes is the sixth game in Falcom's Dragon Slayer anthology and first game in The Legend of Heroes spin-off sub-series. Dragon Slayer was one of Falcom's first big hits and they carried it forward as a title more for the brand recognition than anything else, as each successive entry not only changed the story and characters but made sweeping changes to the gameplay format too. It cycled through Dragon Slayer, Xanadu (which switched from the original's top-down view to a side-scrolling view), Romancia (which simplified the game mechanics for a younger audience), Legacy of the Wizard (which adopted more of an exploraction format), Sorcerian (which had a module-based openness and more arcade-like combat), The Legend of Heroes, and Lord Monarch (which is more of a Fire Emblem style strategy RPG).

I wrote a primer for The Legend of Heroes way back when but in summary it was Falcom's attempt to get in on the turn-based RPG trend popularized by Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy, adopting a more tactical approach to combat with the use of buffs and status effects and a more story-focused presentation. It released on a plethora of systems (at least 11 if we include the PS1/Saturn remasters) and saw a JP-only 1992 sequel, Dragon Slayer: Eiyuu Densetsu II, followed by a trio of vaguely connected games called the Gagharv Trilogy throughout the rest of the '90s. However it wouldn't be until the sixth entry in 2004, Trails in the Sky, that the series would really take off both in Japan but more so internationally. Someday I'll be all caught up with the Trails games, but considering I'm on the fifth game in a list of thirteen and counting it might not be any time soon.

While predominantly known as a video game series the first The Legend of Heroes did receive an anime adaptation. The same would later be true for Sora no Kiseki/Trails in the Sky and Sen no Kiseki/Trails of Cold Steel.

The Anime

The 1992 anime adaptation Dragon Slayer: The Legend of Heroes was produced by studios Anime R and Studio Curtain, directed by Noriyuki Nakamura, with screenplays from Kenichi Matsuzaki. Studio Curtain appears to have only worked on this one OVA series, while Anime R isn't that much more prolific (unless you're a huge Hyper-Psychic Geo Garaga fan, which is definitely a thing I've heard of before today). Director Nakamura has a few other credits as director, including the cook-off comedy Mister Ajikko and an anthro animated take on Indiana Jones called... Montana Jones (at least change the copied homework a little more than that), but largely works as a storyboard artist including for shows as recent as the verbosely titled I May Be a Guild Receptionist, but I'll Solo Any Boss to Clock Out on Time from last year. Writer Matsuzaki has been working on anime since the '70s and was also the featured writer for at least two earlier Game OVA subjects: Macross: Do You Remember Love? and Bubblegum Crisis. In fact, he's the credited creator of the entire Macross franchise, so that's kind of a big deal for fans of transforming robots and virtual idols since Macross sorta precipitated both. He has credits on two potential future Game OVA subjects too: Gall Force (an anime original which saw an FDS shoot 'em up) and Momotarou Densetsu (a Hudson RPG series that later saw a TV show and a far more popular train network development board game spin-off franchise). All in good time, I suppose.

This OVA season is two episodes of normal TV length—about 22 minutes each—so we'll be covering both here. I'm curious how they'll shrink a full-sized turn-based RPG to such a short length but then Falcom really didn't get into the huge tome-length scripts until the Trails era. Playing the game right after this succinct Cliff's Notes version will be an eye-opener I'm sure.

Dragon Slayer: The Legend of Heroes OVA 1

We start, as is customary, with an intro full of fantasy proper nouns to memorize: this is the world of Israehasa, focusing on the kingdom of Faaren, where Prince Sirius/Cerrios has to avenge the recently murdered King Aswell II (he was a father and husband but also a King as well, too) and rescue his abducted mother Queen Felicia from the demon lord Ackdam. This is all depicted in flashback, as we get a rad scene of the King holding off an army of demons to allow the (then-child) Sirius to escape with a trusted retainer, Raius, as the monarch falls to the tricky demon sorcerer while Felicia is carried off by a giant bat (maybe the earliest case of a "bye Felicia" on film?). I'll say one thing: the action scenes so far have been pretty good, with a lot of frames of animation to give it a slightly hyperactive feel that you don't normally see in fantasy anime. I thought this choice might've come down to not really having enough time to spare on these fights since we've plenty of slower exposition scenes ahead to get through but it turns out the entire OVA series is just kinda coked up like this.

After a time skip we switch to a young girl being chased into the woods by a group of bandits, licking their chops in anticipation after cornering their prey. Thankfully for all concerned, this turns out not to be some unpleasant SA scenario: the bandits are actually disguised monsters and they're just going to tear the girl apart and eat her. What a reprieve. Anyway, they don't do that because a now-adult Sirius along with Raius bisect them all and save her. A nice touch is that the monsters here don't just turn into a pile of viscera but actually blink red and disappear like they're random encounters in a video game. Sirius introduces himself to the rescued damsel only to be reprimanded by Raius as he's meant to be incognito to hide from Ackdam's spies: as expected, some demon minion overhears all this and warps back to Ackdam to report in. Ackdam rewards his minion's diligence in reporting back rather than starting a fight and getting himself killed by disintegrating him (glad we got that cliché out of the way with early) then calls in his lieutenant Zagi the Shapeshifter to assassinate the young prince. The prince in question is currently ducking out of sword training so he can laze around, so this probably won't be the hardest assignment for our boy Zagi.

Too bad King Aswell didn't anticipate that Ackdam was made out of demonic faces like the Ghost of Christmas Future from Scrooged. But then who could've?

Hostage situations like this need to be treated delicately, which is why immediately after this Sirius jumps thirty feet into the air and stabs this monster in the face. I guess to a prince everyone's expendable.

After Raius splits a table (and most of a wall) in half by demonstrating how to perform a special attack, which I'm sure won't prove instrumental at some point later in the OVAs, the village the duo are staying at mourn another dead resident at the hands of Zanji, the cruel taskmaster in charge of the local coalmines that Ackdam has forced the captive humans to excavate. Refusing to let any more humans die to a bootleg One Piece character, Sirius charges into the mine while Raius and an as yet unintroduced character actually take the time to emancipate the miners and ensure the whole cave system doesn't collapse on top of them. Zanji proves to be a handful after he transforms into a giant reptilian monster but with help from Raius and his new friend Gale, Sirius pulls a power move and shreds the former slave driver into pieces. Then, because this OVA can't calm down for a second, a massive tentacle dragon suddenly shows up in the middle of the village and starts laying waste to it. After the prince recklessly charges in again, Raius takes a tentacle through the midsection trying to protect Sirius and while the prince is reeling from that, the dragon flings the poor old dude 100MPH into the nearest thatched roof cottage and then burninates it for good measure. It's meant to be a tragic moment and a pivotal growth scene for the so-far-unserious Sirius but the sheer vindictiveness of interrupting the old knight's last moments just to make super sure he's toast (as if he could just walk off a giant hole through his torso) is super funny to me for some reason. Maybe I, like the Demon King Ackdam, don't have a soul either.

I call BS on Zanji having a tail five times longer than his body. He's not even the One Piece character that stretches his body parts!

Damn, he ain't gonna be in Legend of Heroes 2.

His job extra well done, the dragon (actually Zagi, but I'm guessing you figured that out) carries an unconscious Sirius back to Ackdam for a stern talking to. Swearing unholy vengeance on Ackdam for his misdeeds, the Demon King courteously decides to have him executed in a showy fashion at some later date so that any potential companions of his have an opportunity to rescue him, and one duly does apparently unopposed by any prison guards or anything of the sort. We're soon introduced to the prince's new party: Ryunan, the beefy warrior that carried the prince away from his cell; Aaron, the identical twin brother of Raius (which confused me for a moment when I first saw him because I was pretty sure Raius was as dead as it's possible to be); the quiet, shady sorcerer Roe; and Sonya, Aaron's granddaughter as well as a healer and gambling addict irritated that she was dragged in to cure a mostly fine prince. Aaron is in charge of the organized resistance to Ackdam's rule and explains their cause to reinstate the prince as the new King; Sirius, having matured considerably after his defeat and imprisonment and realizing his reckless ways got his retainer and foster father killed, immediately starts yelling that they all need to recklessly charge right into Ackdam's castle right away to rescue his mother (whom Ackdam confirmed was still alive) despite the impressive odds stacked against them. With the patience of a saint, Aaron reiterates that it's impossible with their current numbers and the fact that this is a giant demon army with a big ol' shapeshifting dragon at their command.

Sonya is introduced as not having the most pure intentions when this rich, handsome prince lands in her lap. Which makes it all the odder that she's so quick to sacrifice herself next episode (spoilers).

I did not anticipate the resistance HQ looking so much like Rogue One. Who'd you even commission for an accurate scale model of the continent like that in the medieval era? I suppose Game of Thrones had one too.

With the prince publicly backing the resistance though, they seek to win even more beleaguered Faaren citizens over to their side and tip the scales. The OVA then ends with a little montage of Sirius and his new companions taking out Ackdam's minions across the land and saving those they had enslaved. The animation budget had run out by this point, so instead we get a series of still images with various effects and zooms to give the illusion of movement. Gotta hold something back for Part Two, after all. Can't say I'm warming to the prince character just yet (his characterization so far has been limited to yelling, slashing, and having a mullet) but now that he's assembled a party of quirky allies maybe the second half will be a little more adventuresome and banterish. Or even adventurish and bantersome, I'm not picky. My prediction? They're probably going to slay that dragon, possibly becoming legendary heroes in the process.

Dragon Slayer: The Legend of Heroes OVA 2

Episode 2 starts with... the exact same expository intro as the previous, though rather than showing King Aswell dying in battle again it's a recap montage of events from the previous OVA from the dragon battle up to Sirius assembling his party of champions to cause mischief for Demon King Ackdam and his forces. They spend a good five minutes on all this—though at least it appears the second OVA is a bit longer than the first (24 minutes to its 22 minutes)—and I should clarify here that these two OVA episodes were released about a month apart so maybe the recap was warranted (if the story was at all hard to follow, anyway).

Not pleased at Sirius's rampage, Ackdam decides to proactively put up a declaration saying that Sirius needs to knock it off with all this guerrilla shit or he'll feed his mom to a giant monster. Seems like good leverage to me. He's given a single day to acquiesce so now the race is on to save Queen Felicia, but first he and Sonya have to go to some old temple to find a +5 Sword of Ackdam Killing or some such trinket. Ancient ruins are so convenient that way, holding onto priceless treasures until the heroes need them. Ominously, Sonya tells Sirius she'd like to see the sunrise tomorrow after they're done with this dungeon she absolutely won't be dying in, but the two are assaulted at the temple gates by an elite squad of Ackdam's minions which he teleported over with the help of a Warp Wing (and here I thought those were QoL items only the player could use). Gale, who I guess was already there doing some sightseeing, joins Sonya as she heads into the ruins while Sirius fights off the soldiers which feels a little backwards given he's supposed to be the kingdom's last hope everyone's trying to protect. Sonya's true goal here, which she kept secret from Sirius, is to fuse with the dragon spirit that sleeps under the temple and use her new form to counter the dragon in Ackdam's employ, effectively killing each other. Telling Gale not to let Sirius know what happened to her, Sonya locks a portentous door behind her to meet her destiny with the ancient dragon statue within. This has all been very informative for when I play the game: remove all of Sonya's gear and items once we reach the ruins, gotcha.

These goobers reminded me a lot of the Ginyu Force, albeit with less group posing.

While I am curious about what's going on with that tendril dragon cocoon, I'm more curious about that sci-fi rail gun pointing at it. Seems like that'd be more use against a rampaging dragon honestly.

Since Sirius is taking so long, Aaron's plan to have the army assault the castle while Ackdam's out making a big show of turning the previous queen into monster chow is falling apart, so he orders the troops to instead focus on saving the queen despite the obvious trap. Roe disagrees, leaving the resistance base with Ryunan in close pursuit, and the two then show up in the nick of time at the execution site to thwart Ackdam and Zagi (they had a Warp Wing too, turns out; I guess they're practically giving those away at the store, so that's promising to hear). Zagi transforms into the tentacle dragon to do Ackdam's bidding while Roe reveals that both he and Ackdam studied under the same master: I guess it's like a Ken and Evil Ryu thing. Sirius, Gale, and Dragon-Sonya show up shortly after, with Sirius and Sonya deciding to fight Zagi directly while the other three protect Felicia. Sirius also reveals that he knew the dragon was Sonya the whole time, which is either surprisingly sharp of him or he put two and two together once a dragon popped out of the ruins and not Sonya. After more action scenes, Sonya takes a hit as Ackdam and Sirius fight it out and in his rage Sirius finally pulls off that move Raius taught him ages ago and lops off Zagi's head with a single sword beam. Maybe he just had to reach level 40 first before he could use it, I dunno.

Hey, there are girls you introduce to your mother and there are those you don't, you know? Situationships, am I right?

Sirius gets one more jab at Sonya before she gets blasted by a dragon laser. At least she died as she lived: getting absolutely roasted.

Inspired by Sirius's dedication to protecting the queen, the assembled crowd of humbled human serf onlookers take up their pitchforks and hoes and rakes and shears and shovels and lawn aerators to attack the demon army contingent alongside Ryunan and Roe while at the same time Aaron leads the resistance in taking Ackdam's castle, having either bluffed his own subordinates or forgotten what he was originally supposed to be doing because, hey, that just kinda happens more often as you get old. Roe then leads everyone into a spirit bomb rally for Sirius's sake, lending him enough Power of Friendship to incinerate a rapidly reviving Zagi (I guess you can regenerate from anything if you try hard enough) but not quite catching Ackdam in that blast, whom instead bails for the mountains. Roe sadly admits he can't do anything for the fatally wounded Dragon-Sonya, so instead Sirius dips inside her soul to unfuse her from the dragon, which is something he's apparently always known how to do. But it's like, how often does that skillset ever come up, you know? Almost not even worth putting on the ol' résumé; it's no four-week course in Microsoft Excel, let's be honest. The dragon spirit's like "we weren't really vibing anyway, s'cool brah" and takes off, leaving Sonya perfectly fine and alive and able to marry Sirius after all this is over I guess. Not like there's any other women in this movie besides the prince's mom. On cue the sun rises, fulfilling Sonya's wish, with Sirius promising everyone many more sunrises to come. As leadership campaign promises go that seems like a pretty easy one to fulfill.

Anyway, the OVA's almost over at this point, excepting for the fact that Ackdam is still out there scheming away on a plan so devious, so insidious, that no-one will ever see it coming. To that effect, Sirius leaves his mom to rule Faaren instead so he can go off on another adventure to chase down the missing sorcerer, leading to what I assume will be the plot of Dragon Slayer: The Legend of Heroes II: The Empire Strikes Ackdam. The OVA gets in one last good joke before the credits roll: as Aaron delivers this news to the queen, Sonya stands nearby with a conspicuously bandaged arm in a sling, having almost broken her wrist earlier "punching a dumbass". When it switches to Sirius, Ryunan, Roe, and Gale sailing a ship to new lands, Sirius's face is all busted up.

"The fuck are these chickenscratches? Was my son raised by wolves?"

Arguably well deserved.

So that's that. I'll commend the combat scenes, even for as sped up as they were, and an attempt was made at some levity and drama between the party companions but otherwise this is about as generic and clichéd a fantasy story as you're likely to find in 1992. The Ys OVA suffered from this as well, playing everything a little too straight, but Falcom weren't really known for nuance in their storytelling and characterization quite yet: that came later with the Trails series which in turn then later found its way into Ys VIII-X and projects like Tokyo Xanadu presumably after all that extra effort put into their dialogue and worldbuilding was applauded. It didn't get me particularly hyped for this upcoming playthrough of the first Legend of Heroes game, but maybe it'll prove to have more personality in comparison.

Does it do right by the game? Chotto matte, kudasai.

The Game(s)

Dragon Slayer: The Legend of Heroes was first released in 1989 on the Japanese NEC PC-88 home computer before being ported to, well, almost everything: the PC-98, the FM Towns, the MSX, the PC Engine CD-ROM/TurboGrafx-CD, the Super Famicom, the X68000, Mega Drive, Windows, PlayStation, and Saturn. All the stars, etc.. The American localization of the TurboGrafx-CD version, performed by Hudson (not Working Designs thank god), changed some of the character and place names but seems to be otherwise intact and given it's the only case of the game being officially localized into English it'll be the one we're playing this time as the accompaniment.

As a courtesy I probably ought to perform whenever I cover a TGCD game, a link to the soundtrack is provided here. As with the TGCD version of Ys III which I played at the start of this season of Game OVA Reversal, having a new CD soundtrack from Falcom Sound Team JDK to listen to is no doubt going to be the highlight of this playthrough. I am a simple man, it's true.

Let's finally find out where one of the most renowned presently active JRPG series got its start:

The animated intro after hitting "new game" is somehow more anime than the anime adaptation. Damn if these guys don't look way cooler here than they do in the OVAs.

Like the anime, it starts with a long bit of narration about the world setting as we stare at a map, though the localization went with "Farlayne" over "Faalen" as the hero's country which is pretty much the same only with more Quagmire jokes. Giggity. The game's story is somewhat similar to the anime's, though with a few significant tweaks so they could condense a twenty-hour RPG into the equivalent of two TV show episodes. For one, the prince of the game is betrayed by a lesser noble named Baron Drax who arranged the monster invasion that killed the king and is planning to marry the captive queen to legitimize his reign: the prince (renamed Logan here) was officially sent to be raised in a "safe" island settlement named Exile until he came of age to take the throne, but Drax sends monsters over there too and prematurely informs the kingdom that the prince has already perished. The first chapter of the game involves recruiting party members and whipping up the underground resistance (led by the twin brother of your retainer) to retake the capital of Farlayne, Sylvan. Subsequent arcs then involve finding out where Drax escaped off to after losing the siege of Sylvan and who gave him the power to summon demons, leading to stronger opposition in other kingdoms. There also wasn't anything about fighting or transforming into dragons in the game's first chapter either, so I have to assume that plotline occurs later.

Mechanically, the game has this cautious aspect to its overall design where it has automatic stat distribution on by default but the player can change it to manual to min-max their party members if they prefer, not quite fully committing to what had become the norm due to Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, and even Wizardry. You can also change the XP gauge depicted on the little side window for each member of your party—in the TGCD version at least, the playing field is shrunk down for the sake of more UI—so that it displays how much XP you have left to earn before the next level up rather than your current total. Falcom were still testing the waters with this new (or at least new to them) RPG format so it makes sense that some of these mechanics and options feel a bit gingerly approached. On the other hand, for a pretty standard Dragon Quest clone it does at least move quickly, Falcom recognizing that the appeal of their earlier Xanadu and Ys games is that you could rapidly grind up if need be without the process necessarily taking hours. It's a little like the way people now play retro (or throwback) turn-based RPGs with the speed turned up, especially if you're just steamrolling random encounter mobs while you're trying to explore a dungeon or cross the overworld map. Other modern concessions include visible monster encounters (inside dungeons, at least), full HP and MP restoration upon leveling, and both a "restart battle" and a "return to last town" option if you get party wiped. There's even auto-fighting toggles (including optional spell usage) for the encounters too if you're just trying to level up or raise money for the next piece of gear.

Quite a few options for combat, though "fight" is really the only thing you need against these blobby weaklings. Best part of this system is that each character has their turn and immediately carries it out, so no worrying about casting time or the like.

The HQ is way less impressive here. Also Sonya doesn't join in on the fighting, despite the fancy splash screen. Maybe she joins up later?

The game has a semi-satirical self-aware streak that is kind of charming. After meeting Aaron (or Aryn now) for the first time he assigns Logan and his new burly friend Ethan (Ryunan from the OVA, who is also introduced here springing Logan from jail; very much the Dogi to his Adol) the mission of freeing the captive miners of The Pits from Drax's overseers but only once they've reached level 8 and are thus capable enough to pull it off. Likewise, the sorcerer Markus (the Roe equivalent) wisecracks that he'd be happy to join you but he has his pride as a level 7 mage, so Logan needs to be at least level 6 first before he'll consider teaming up. Something about explicitly acknowledging that the world around you is driven by numbers and stats seems existentially harrowing, and it's something you also see a lot in fantasy anime (the vast majority of which are inspired directly by JRPGs like this one).

So I didn't realize this but should've anticipated that not only was the game's text localized into English but so was its voice acting, and boy howdy is this some campy early anime voice acting. For instance, the actor doing the voice of Raius (now Elias) decided to make him Irish for reasons I couldn't possibly hope to guess at, save that he had that accent in his back pocket for when an opportunity arose to use it. As predicted, the music and presentation are the highlights here, the soundtrack having a very similar '90s anime rock style as the TGCD Ys III port. Meiko Ishikawa is credited for the original compositions but I've no idea if she did this anime butt-rock CD soundtrack as well; she's a long-time composer for Ys, though, so it's well within her realm of expertise.

Big words from a dude who sells exactly two items, both of which are easily sourced from monster drops.

This version of Sonya isn't anywhere near as violent, at least. Not that there's any room left in this sausage party I got going.

Did the anime do right by the game? It's certainly accurate enough from what I've seen so far, even if they couldn't cover the whole story. I'm reconsidering the faster speed of the anime's cutscenes as now being more of a deliberate homage to Falcom and the breakneck pacing of their games, even those of a more deliberate tactical nature like The Legend of Heroes. If the OVA only existed to promote the game, and I very much suspect it did, then I'd argue it does its job well enough: mildly entertaining, incredibly urgent, and powered by clichés though with enough winking meta humor subversions to soften the impact.

And that's going to conclude this season of anime-game chimeras from this wascally weeaboo right here. I've got plenty of material for 2027, whether we do a standard season of Game OVA or another of these Reversal seasons, so I'll be busy digging those up from whatever derelict VHS rental store had them far back in the "niche interests" shelving unit along with those police knife crime instructional videos and Christian educational puppet shows where a felt hippo delineates all the ways you're going to hell for not sorting your trash properly. September, meanwhile, will see the return of 64 in 64 where I'll be covering even more of those wacky N64 3D platformers before Gerstmann can. If you enjoyed this Game OVA season or have anime recommendations for next year, by all means drop a comment and I'll go ahead and hit that "yeah" button next to it because I'll be too shy to respond. Until then, sayonara. Slayonara?